Sour Grapes
by Zoe Nightshade
Summary: A long time ago, Hestia gave up her throne on Olympus for Dionysus. After Dionysus breaks a promise to her, she wants her throne back.
1. Chapter 1

_Hestia made her way into the saloon past all the drunken men, just waiting to pounce on her. She didn't want them to get them to her, but then, they couldn't. She was a goddess. She walked to the only sober man in the place. Although he had drunk more beer than any other man in the saloon, he was still sober. Miracle? No. This was Dionysus, the king of them all. Hestia shoved a man to the side as she approached her nephew._

_"Dionysus," she said._

_"Yes?"_

_She looked around at all the drunks staring at them._

_"Can we go," she whispered, "somewhere alone?"_

_The god took her to a garden that had once been beautiful, but was now littered in broken beer bottles._

_"Listen," she said. "Remember when I gave up my seat on Olympus for you?"_

_"I'll never forget it, Hestia," Dionysus told her._

_"You told me that you now owed me a favor, a big one, remember?"_

_"Yes," said Dionysus, "I certainly did."_

_"I want to redeem it now."_

_"What do you want?"_

_"First," said the goddess, "you must promise not to tell anyone."_

_"You're asking someone not to tell someone?" Dionysus asked surprised at this usually open goddess. "Do you want me to swear on the River Styx?"_

_"No," Hestia said shaking her head. "Sadly, someone will find out eventually, but put it off as much as you can."_

_"What is it?"_

_"You know that I am a virgin goddess, right?" she asked._

_"Duh."_

_"Well..."_

_"You didn't," Dionysus said stepping a few steps back from his aunt._

_"I did."_

_"Is it-"_

_"She was born last night. Zeus doesn't know yet, thank the Fates," Hestia said quietly._

_"Why are you telling me? I don't see how it's a huge favor for me to keep a secret for you, no matter how big."_

_"Dionysus, that is only the beginning," Hestia told him._

_"Eh?"_

_"How many years do you have left in Camp Half-Blood?" she asked._

_"I just got condemned there, you know that. I've got about 95."_

_"I want you to find her a family for now, and watch over her until she's old enough for camp."_

_"Okay," he said._

_"And then," Hestia continued, "when she gets there, I want you to claim her."_

_"What?" For the first time, Dionysus looked the least bit drunk._

_"I can't take care of her," she said._

_"Zeus would never-"_

_"But my sisters would."_

_"You mean Hera and Demeter?" Dionysus asked. "They wouldn't either."_

_"Not those sisters. My virgin sisters of the hearth," Hestia said, crying. She leaned closer to Dionysus. "They know about...you know."_

_Dionysus agreed. To a god, this was such a tiny favor compared to what Hestia had given him; a throne on Olympus._

_"Where is the girl?" he asked._

_The watched as the goddess took out a small bundle from her sack that usually carried things of nature; not that the sweet little girl wasn't nature. She usually carried sticks and stones, and sometimes jewels or almighty precious items. But when he took the small bundle and peeked behind the flap of the blanket, he saw that the girl was right up there with the jewels. Dionysus looked back to its mother._

_"The name," he said. "What is it?"_

_"I haven't decided yet," she said; her face adding guiltiness to its grief. She took one last look at her little daughter, doomed to a life of danger, and said, "I must be going. Take good care of her."_

_Dionysus covered the baby's eyes as Hestia glowed, and then she disappeared. The god knew exactly what he would name the girl; after someone important to him, so that no one would ever guess who the baby's real mother was. He would name her-_

Ω

"Ariadne?" asked the school nurse. Ariadne jerked her head up right away.

"What..."

"I was asking you some questions when it looked like your mind went to la-la land."

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry, Ms. Hatchet. I just was...in sort of a dream, but I wasn't sleeping. It was weird."

The lady smiled dryly. "Once again," she said impatiently, "what happened?"

"I told you already. Maria and I were forced to talk at lunch because of the fight we had. My teacher said if we talked, we could become friends. So I was being real nice, but Maria lunged at me scratched me and then Woody ran over and did something weird; I can't explain it." Ariadne told the nurse for the millionth time.

"For the one-thousandth time, Ariadne, I don't believe you."

Right before Ms. Hatchet started on the long list of reasons why she didn't believe her, Woody came in.

"Ms. Hatchet, I need to take Ariadne somewhere," he said.

Ariadne expected the nurse to say no. Who, with Ella Hatchet's personality, would go just let some sixth grader take a girl who had been hurt and was in trouble?

"Woody," she started, "I know and you know that-"

Woody snapped his fingers. A cold wind blew threw the infirmary of 64th Street Elementary.

"that of course you can take her!" she said eccentrically.

Woody grabbed Ariadne's hand as tight as someone would while being held over a cliff.

"We've got to hurry!" he said.

The two ran over to Ariadne's house. Well, that is, her 6th foster parent's house, but that's a long story.

"Mr. Carr?" Woody yelled, even though he knew that he was allowed to call him 'Lorenzo.'

"Lorenzo?" Ariadne screamed, calling her 6th foster father's name.

Lorenzo and Gabriella were Ariadne's 6th foster parents. She had gone through a few of them because she had to move whenever she was thrown out of school, one because when she got there, they decided they didn't want a girl who could be thrown out of so many schools, and the rest for various reasons. However, Lorenzo and Gabby, as she called them, were the parents that she was most comfortable with. She had been with them for two years, and Woody seemed to trust them like he would his own.

Gabby Carr showed up at the kitchen door, smiling as usual, but her smile instantly faded when she saw Woody.

"What's wrong, Gabby?" asked Ariadne. Gabby had always loved Woody.

"It's time, isn't it," Ariadne's foster mother muttered. Woody nodded.

"Yes," he said. "It's time."


	2. Chapter 2

"What do you mean? Time for what?" Ariadne asked. Again, no answer.

Gabriella knelt down beside Ariadne like she was a little baby.

"Listen, Ariadne," she said. "I-"

"What's wrong?"

"Ariadne, I love you dearly, but you need to go."

"Go where?" Ariadne asked. She still had no idea what was going on.

"Ariadne," Woody stepped in. "Listen, I should've told you this long ago, but it was just too dangerous."

"What?" the poor girl asked.

Woody took off his hat, as Ariadne's eyes widened. He had horns. There were fake horns, and there were real horns, and these were definitely real.

"Woody," she cried, but she didn't have the luxury of being in shock as long as she would have liked to.

"Ariadne," Gabby said, "I am going to tell you something that you should have known long ago. After I tell you, I want you to go with Woody to a safer place."

"Wait a minute-"

"The Greek gods and goddesses are real. That's why I have telling you all those stories about them. I-"

"What are you talking about?" Ariadne screamed. Something was wrong. Gabby never had sounded this urgent. Gabby just continued. She was talking quickly and quietly.

"They are real and one of them is your parent. I don't know if it's your mother or father, but since you know now, you are in greater danger then you ever have been in. Maria, the bully in school, is probably a monster trying to kill you. I-"

For once Ariadne didn't believe something bad said about Maria. "Gabby, what-" she started.

"Go with Woody!" she yelled. "He's a satyr and is meant to bring you to a safer place. Go!"

Woody grabbed Ariadne's hand and together they ran. Woody brought her outside into the garage where the Carr family's cars were.

"What's going on?" Ariadne cried.

"Come on!" he said. He sounded urgent, like they were about to die.

Woody and Gabby lifted Ariadne into the car and promptly blindfolded her. She kicked and screamed like a two-year-old, but nothing would work. What was happening, and why was Woody betraying her? He had never kept a single secret from her. They were best friends. Gabby was her foster mother. What were they doing to her, and why? She was sitting in a car, blindfolded, going somewhere she didn't exactly know. She could feel the car vibrating. Then, it began to move.

"What is this?" she yelled, tugging on her blindfold. What was it that they didn't want her to see?

"We need to do this or you'll come back," Gabby said even though she was just as sad.

Ariadne had been with foster parents who didn't want her before, but usually, they just took her to the social worker; they didn't blindfold her and take her to a mystery place. Had they just had enough of placing Ariadne into foster families and wanted to do away with her?

"Why don't you just take me the the social worker?" Ariadne cried. "Not here, please not here."

"We want you, Ariadne, but this is-"

"What are you doing to me?" the poor girl screamed.

"Don't try to explain," said Woody. "She'll find out soon enough."

Ω

_A beautiful woman walked through a throne room in a magical palace in the sky, it seemed like. The floor was of the prettiest, and probably most expensive, marble in the world. But this marble wasn't paid for. Nor was the palace in the sky. This was Olympus, the home of the gods, and the woman in the throne room was a goddess. Somehow, Ariadne knew this although she hadn't believed is when Gabby told her. Another thing about the woman, she didn't belong here on Olympus; not anymore, anyway. She once belonged here long ago, but her heart and her generous personality evicted her from this beautiful place; the best place in the world, though not known to the mortal man. _

_ The woman was never a queen, nor was she rich or beautiful as some of the other goddesses, but to her, money and beauty didn't matter. What mattered was her hearth, and her sworn sisters who kept it lit. The woman was once happy and loving, but now the woman was distressed and seldom smiled. Her only pride was her fire. It glazed day and night for thousands of years. It was her equal. Recently, it was all she had, until..._

_Once, her fire burned in the halls of Olympus, then down on Earth in a palace of her own not known to men, and now, she lived in a small cave that she knew men would destroy within the next century._

_The throne room was the throne room of the world's superior gods and goddesses known as the Olympians. The only Olympian here was Dionysus, Ariadne somehow knew, the twelfth member of the Olympian Council. He slumped, lazily, in a majestic throne or grape vines and gold, eating a bowl of giant peeled grapes. The woman looked upon his laziness in disappointment._

_"Dionysus," she said. Dionysus looked up at her, swallowing most of his hardly chewed grape._

_"Hey," he said._

_"I am disappointed in you," she said. "Very."_

_"What? Why?"_

_"I gave up everything, Dionysus," she said. She sank to her knees covering her tears in her humble linen robes. "And what to? A slob!"_

_Dionysus seemed to get what she was saying. He sat upright and his bowl of peeled grapes vanished._

_"Oh," she cried. "Dionysus, I'm sorry to scold you so, but..."_

_"What is it?"_

_"My fire," she cried. "It is out."_


	3. Chapter 3

Ariadne woke up sitting in the car. She slowly opened her eyes. Woody sat in the front seat next to Gabby. They talked quietly, like something bad was happening.

For a moment, Ariadne thought of her dream. _Could it possibly have any connection to the one I had at school, _she thought. In her dream, the Greek myth characters were real. It was a nice dream. It seemed so real. Ariadne liked those kinds of dreams, the kind that were like _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, a book about a girl who had a vivid dream, much more vivid than Ariadne's. She'd had dreams about strange things, but the Greek gods being real as a subject was an out-of-the-box idea. That was when Ariadne remembered what Gabby had said to her. It seemed like forever-ago.

At that moment, Woody looked back at her.

"She's awake," he said. Gabby nodded, but didn't say anything.

A few minutes later, the car pulled up a distance from what seemed to be a strawberry farm. People in the distance ran around.

"Ariadne," Gabby said. Her voice was broken, like she had been crying.

"It's true," Ariadne said, looking off into the distance. "The gods. They're-"

"Yes," Gabby said. "It is."

The two looked at each other.

"Ariadne, I-" Gabby started. Woody cut in.

"Look," he said. "We need to get Ariadne in soon. By soon, I mean now. Ariadne, I'll explain it in more detail later, but basically, this is a camp for half-bloods. You're a half-blood, and if you don't go, you'll be attacked by monsters!"

Although she knew what was happening, this was a shock. It was then when it hit her that she would be leaving Gabriella and Lorenzo for what might be forever. She turned to her foster mother.

"Gabby?" she whispered.

Gabby nodded and said,"Go on, Ariadne. We might...you know, well we-"

But Gabriella Carr knew that she could not finish her sentence. She would probably never see who she thought of as her daughter again. The two looked at each other once more. Then, Woody took Ariadne by the hand and led her into the boundaries of camp. Ariadne looked back at Gabby one last time, just as her foster mother, the only real mother she had ever known, got into the car, and left.

Ariadne walked in a daze from there. Woody walked her by the hand to a mansion, the Big House, like a little child.

As she walked, she wanted to be anywhere but there, yet there was no exact place she could think of being. She hadn't comprehended what had just happened, and if she had, it hadn't sunk in yet. She was no longer welcome in the place she most loved-the Carrs'. It wasn't that she loved it there, but it was home, and the best one she had ever had. Then, she stopped. Even though they were safe and inside the borders of camp, Woody was anxious to get Ariadne into the Big House.

"Come on," he said softly. But Ariadne turned around. Time had caught up with her. She had just left her home. And she wasn't coming back.  
Fortunately, though, Chiron trotted up to them and brought Ariadne inside while she was taking in the unfathomable fact that there was a half-horse-half-man talking to Woody like an old friend.

"-and then the mortal drove away, and that's all I know, sir," said Woody. He was telling Ariadne's story to Chiron. "I was focused on getting Ariadne to camp. I didn't feel anything strange when I crossed the borders, though."

Chiron nodded calmly, but nervously.

"Come on inside, dear," he said. Ariadne backed up nervously. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood."

Woody and Chiron walked Ariadne into the Big House.

_She's got a weak personality, _Chiron thought as he entered the mansion, _but I'll have that changed in no time. _

"Ariadne, is it?" asked Chiron as soon as they sat down. She nodded. "Well, so you know about the Greek gods and goddesses?" Ariadne nodded again. "Tell me what you know," Chiron told her.

"About the Greek-"

"Yes," Chiron said.

"Ummm....they're the gods," Ariadne answered, not knowing exactly what Chiron was looking for, "and they're...alive?"

"Yes, my dear girl," the centaur said. "And one of your parents _is _one. I believe Woody told you this."

Ariadne nodded.

"Chiron," Woody said. "I told her about it, but we don't know about her parent. When I found her three years ago, she was living with her fourth pair of foster parents. Sir, there were monsters everywhere."

"Yes, Woody," Chiron said. "and I congratulate you on keeping her alive for three long years," Chiron turned to Ariadne. "Woody, here, is a satyr, half-goat, if you can understand that." Ariadne looked at Woody in shock, and betrayal. "You are a half-blood, which means you are in great danger, so Woody and other satyrs like him go around and escort half-bloods like you to Camp Half-Blood."

"Wait," Ariadne began. "Woody is a-"

"Usually, once a demigod is found, they are brought here as soon as possible, but we were having trouble with the borders around camp, so it wasn't safe for you to be brought."

"Wait a minute," Ariadne said. "so I'm half-god, you're half-horse, and Woody is..."

"A satyr, Ariadne," he said. "From the waist down, I'm a goat."

At times like these, Ariadne wished she would just faint and wake up later to put off the shock.

"Oh," Chiron said. "I must call Mr. D. He was anxious to see you for some reason."

Woody stood up and said,"Mr. D, anxious to see a new camper?"

"Yes,"Chiron told him,"I was quite vexed myself. He usually wants them disintegrated."

Woody and Chiron laughed in a good nature, but the comment only worried Ariadne.

"What? Disintegrated?"

At that moment, a man in a nice, but casual suit came down the stairs. Woody and Chiron both almost gasped. They both expected to see a grumbling, yawning, tired man in a leopard-skinned running suit the lazy god wore only because it was more comfortable than regular pajamas.

"Mr. D," Chiron said recovering, "this is Ariadne."

Woody was ready. He had been practicing this in his mind for years. Mr. D would start criticizing Ariadne, complaining about her being "just another little brat," and Woody would comfort her telling her "don't worry, he doesn't mean it," without getting in huge trouble with the almighty Olympian himself.

"Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, Ariadne," Mr. D said calmly. "I'm Mr. D a.k.a. Dionysus."

"Th-the god?" the girl asked in awe. Woody was about to step in for Mr. D's "well, DUH!" but-

"Yes," Dionysus said. "Olympian Council member #12."

He held out his hand for the girl to shake. Mr. D had a sense of power to him, not just because he was a god though. It was a warm, friendly power, but with a cold, hard feeling behind it. Behind Ariadne, Woody and Chiron stood in awe. Mr. D hated campers. Being director of camp was a _punishment_. The silence was broken when Mr. D looked at a watch that appeared in from of his face from midair.

"Time for dinner, I take it. Let's go," he said, taking Ariadne's hand to walk her to the dining pavilion.

Ariadne was put with the Hermes Table as she was unclaimed, while everyone stood in shock watching Dionysus actually being _nice _to a camper! He walked Ariadne through the brazier, showing her how to sacrifice part of her food.

"How come Mr. D's taken such a liking to you?" a kid from Hermes asked once everything had gotten settled down.

"I-I don't know. I just got here minutes ago," Ariadne told everyone.

"Oh, welcome to camp!" someone said. "but don't get used to Mr. D like that. He isn't even nice to his own kids if they're at camp. They aren't now, but when they are, they're his slaves!"

Another boy reached his hand across the table the shake Ariadne's.

"Hi," he said in a fake British accent. The girl next to him rolled her eyes and said, "Showoff."

"I'm Wilson," he said. "So you're unclaimed like me?"

"Yeah," Ariadne said.

At that moment, some big, burly-looking kids walked over to the table and the leader said,"So, if it isn't Mr. D's new pet!"

The girl next to Ariadne muttered,"Oh, great, Ares' kids."

"You'd better hope to be a kid of Ares, huh?"

"Umm....okay," Ariadne said, not sure what was happening.

The kids left, mainly because they weren't supposed to be up form their tables and had received a look from Chiron, enforcing that.

"Who were they?" Ariadne asked.

"Ares' kids," Wilson told her. He made a face. "Everyone hates them."

The rest of the table explained to Ariadne all about the horrors of the sons and daughters of Ares, the god of War.

"Why do all you guys fight so much?"

"We're not fighting," Wilson said looking at the rest of the table. "Oh, we get in little spats every once and a while, but we're pals year round for the most part, anyway."

"No," Ariadne said. "Not you, I mean the tables. Why do you all hate each other?"

"Not all of us hate each other," a girl said. "But if a half-blood's immortal parent hates a god, then the half-blood must hate that god's kids."

"Why? What do you care what you paren-"

"Don't say that!" Wilson whispered. He pointed up to the sky. "They'll hear you!"

"Oh, sorry," she said. "But why can't you all just be a happy family?"

"Oh, I don't know. Things just like work out like this."

Meanwhile, at the Authorities Table, Dionysus was worried. He had promised to claim and find a family for the girl. Dionysus, not usually a children-loving man, could simply not find a family for this girl so many years ago, so he put her in an orphanage, putting a spell on the authority figures there, to not find a family for any child until Ariadne had one. Next, he had to claim her. That would be awkward, but easy. Then, there was the promise he had made to her later, after he had left Ariadne. He had promised to restore her fire.


	4. Chapter 4

_Dionysus was pacing in his apartment in the Big House. It was nice, but not as nice as his castle on Olympus. _

_That day, he had seen Hestia again. She was again, asking him to do her a huge favor. After years, her godly life seemed to be falling apart, and not only that, but her fire was out. Dionysus had promised to help her save it. She had a plan, but he had to promise to go help her before she told him. Of course, he would need to postpone his 'internment' in this stupid brat camp, and Zeus would not hear of it! Dionysus went as far as to trade five extra years in Camp Half-Blood for a short leave, but Zeus was not a man for compromise._

_"I promise," he told Hestia,"that I will send someone to help you with time."_

_Dionysus was counting on sending a half-blood from Camp Half-Blood, preferably Ariadne, Hestia's own daughter. Who else would care about Hestia? So Dionysus decided to just wait until Ariadne got to camp, and she would get to camp._

_What Dionysus didn't get was that Hestia needed help, and she needed help right then. _

_Every god had something that powered them. Apollo had music, Ares had war, Hermes had travelers, messengers, and thieves, and so on. Another thing that powered gods was worshipers. When both were gone, the god faded, because nothing, not even a god, can last forever. After the golden age of Greece, some minor gods started to fade, along with countless monsters._

_Now, in America, the Greek gods didn't have many worshipers, so they counted on what had kept them going for thousands of years. Many gods were perfectly fine. For instance, Hermes would not be endanger of fading any time soon. There would always be travelers, messengers, and sadly, there would always be thieves. Apollo was at his highest point because with new musical devices such as ipods, radios, and many others, music wasn't going to disappear anytime soon._

_However, some gods were not as lucky as Apollo, Hermes, and many others. Pan, with the wild disappearing, was endangered of fading, wherever he was. Now, Hestia was as well. Hestia was known as the goddess of the hearth. She picked that title because she loved the hearth. It reminded her of family, her main specialty. Families were in no danger of disappearing, but Hestia's type of family was not a regular family. Hestia's idea of family was love, and real love. Nowadays, there was too much divorce, too much jealousy, and too much hate in families. Families were no longer families. Now, they were acquaintances who happened to be closely related. There was no love in families like there used to be. With families, her virgin sisters, and her fire all gone, Hestia was depressed and endangered._

_Dionysus knew that Hestia needed help quick, but as a god, when he thought of "quick" he thought decades, maybe even centuries. Hestia usually was the same, but she knew now that her time was running out._

Ω

That was when Ariadne woke up to darkness. It was still night time. What time was it? Ariadne got up from an uncomfortable position, squeezed up against a bunk bed and wall behind it. Like most of the cabins in this camp, there weren't enough bunk beds for everyone, and the Hermes Cabin, being the cabin for not only sons and daughters of Hermes, but undetermined campers, had a serious crowding problem. She looked over at the wrist of the girl sleeping next to her. Her watch said 3:08. Great. Ariadne hated this feeling. She was stuck with nothing to do, and hours ahead, and she was not someone who could fall back asleep. Once she was up, she was up. She sighed. It was deathly silent-that is if you took out the deafening sound of twenty-eight kids snoring up a storm.

Ariadne sat, thinking about what had happened that day. She could almost not believe it, but then, here she was. She was also sure that Gabby and Lorenzo still loved her. They loved her a lot. Gabby once said that she and Lorenzo would like to adopt Ariadne, but they couldn't afford it. Because she was a foster child, her foster parents, Gabby and Lorenzo, were reimbursed the money they spent on Ariadne, and her medical needs were paid for by someone else; she didn't know who; probably the government or the social worker company, or whatever it was. Gabby and Lorenzo couldn't afford to have a child of their own, but had always wanted children. Since foster parents did not need to pay a dime, providing for the foster child, and Gabby and Lorenzo were dangerously close to being too old to have children, they decided that becoming foster parents couldn't hurt anything. If Gabby and Lorenzo adopted Ariadne, they would take on any cost of raising her, along with any medical attention she might need. Even though they even offered to scrape together the money to do that once, Ariadne had told them that she didn't want them to adopt her. It would just be a burden on them. Besides, she already felt like they were her parents; legal or not.

She looked back at the girl's watch. 3:11.

_Oh, come on!_ Ariadne thought. _It seemed like forever since I looked at her watch. I deserve much more than three minutes!_

Well, now she had, like before, hours ahead just sitting there. So she just sat there. Usually, Ariadne's mind would drift away, and she would be entertained by her imagination, but right then, she was 100% in a cold, dark cabin with the deafening sound of twenty-eight kids snoring there heads off. She felt stiff. She wanted to get up and move around.

Carefully, Ariadne crept around all of the kids, scattered on the floor. Then, she opened the door slowly, and went outside. If the door had creaked, fortunately, no one had heard it over the sound of snoring.

Ariadne had never been to camp, but she knew what it was, and this was no ordinary camp. The twelve cabins, each bigger than Gabby and Lorenzo's house, were formed in a the middle of the semi-circle was a huge, soccer field-sized open area with fountains, plants, and all sorts of things scattered around. In the middle was a fire pit, the fire used for campfire after dinner. She looked into it. It had such a cold mood; that is, if fire pits could have moods. It was like it was missing something.

Ariadne went out of the closeknit semi-circle, walking beside the Zeus and Hera Cabins into the forest. She walked in the forest for a while, enjoying the cold night air, and the peace and quiet silence. Owls hooted in the distance. Ariadne wasn't scared of the dark, or being alone, but she was sometimes spooked, and she had never been in the woods, at night, all by herself. A tree moved. Ariadne jumped back.

Breathing quickly, she ran as far away from it as she could. Another tree moved nearby the first. Oh, they were only a couple tree nymphs stirring in their sleep.

Ariadne calmed down for a moment. That is, until she realized she was lost. She had run without thinking. She panicked. What would she do now? She was lost in the middle of a forest which was in the middle of a creepy camp place which was in the middle of-somewhere that...Ariadne didn't know what to do. She had no idea where she was.

"H-Hello?" she called. No one answered, of course. Everyone was asleep. It was probably about 3:30. She took a deep breath. When she was almost calm, a cold hand touched her bare neck.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH-HELP!" she screamed. She felt herself turned around.

"I'm terribly sorry to scare you."

Oh, Dionysus. Mr. D.

"You-" Ariadne started. "It was only you. I thought-"

"You don't like being alone too much, do you?"

Ariadne shook her head, realizing that it was true. She didn't like being alone in the woods.

"Lord-Mr. D," Ariadne asked timidly. "Would you by any chance..."

"What?"

"Could you possibly help me find my way back?" she asked.

Dionysus snapped his fingers, and in an instant, the two were in the Big House.

The warm fire crackling in the fireplace seemed to make the mood so warm.

"Grapes?" Dionysus asked. A bowl of peeled grapes appeared in Ariadne's hand.

"Oh," she said startled. "Thank you."

She put one in her mouth.

"Yum," she said. It was okay, but not the best. "It's delicious," she said eating another one. Dionysus was, after all, a god, so she had to be polite.

Immediately, a pumpkin pie stood in the uneaten grapes.

"Thank you," Ariadne said. She ate half of it, and then put her fork down.

Dionysus read the girl's mind. She wasn't thinking of anything other than the present. So he looked deeper to things she wasn't thinking of then. Strange dreams, huh? Why hadn't she said anything. Probably because she didn't know that they were true. Mr. D would just look further into her mind, but he was lazy, so he decided to just ask her.

_Oh, Zeus, why did I agree to being kind to this little illegitimate brat? _he thought.

"Ariadne," he said.

"Yes, sir?"

"Have you had any strange dreams lately?" he asked. It was a rather awkward question, but the god's head hurt and looking any further into Ariadne's mind would give him a migraine.

"Well, actually yes," she said. "You were it them, and I didn't even know you when I had my first one."

"First one?"

"It's like it's a story or a series, but they're a bunch of dreams and it's like they're...connected."

"Tell me them, will you?" Dionysus told her.

Ariadne didn't know why he was suddenly interested in her dreams, but she told him.

"My first one was when I was in the car, coming to camp," she said. "No, that's not right. It was...when I was in the nurse's office at school. I think, that's right." She paused for a moment. "Yeah, that's right."

Dionysus was seriously getting annoyed with this little _mortal _brat he had to be _nice_ to, but for once, he didn't say anything unkind.

"What was your dream?" he asked.

"The first one?"

"Yes! The first one!" Dionysus shouted. "Sorry, the fir-well, go on. Please."

"You were in some kind of a bar," Ariadne told him. "There was this woman and she went to talk to you about you owing her a favor."

"Yes," Dionysus said under his breath, his patience disappearing faster than Hestia's hope of survival. "Go on," he said with a forced, "Please."

"See, Hestia is a maiden and she's suppose to be a virgin. She is the goddess of the-"

"I know who Hestia is," Mr. D growled.

"Well, she had a baby and wanted you to pretend it was your baby."

"I see," Mr. D said. "Is that all?"

"Uh huh. That's all." Ariadne nodded.

"Next."

"Next what?"

"Next dream, you imbeci-umm, next dream. There were more than one, right?"

"Yes."

Dionysus motioned for her to go on.

"The next one was short. It was you and that woman, Hestia again," Ariadne said. "You were some kind of king, and Hestia went to your throne and said her fire was out."

_It seems, _Dionysus thought, _that Ariadne has forgotten that Greek Mythology is real. This little weakling's probably just too tired to remember._

"How many dreams did you have in all?"

"Three," she said.

"Okay, the third?"

"Well, um, you were in the Big House. You were thinking of me and you were thinking that I was going to have to go on a quest to restore my mother's fire. Well, actually, it was someone named Ariadne, but it was probably me since it was my dream. But anyway, you were saying that you would send Ariadne on a quest to restore her mother's fire, but somehow I knew-of course, this is all fake since it was a dream-that Hestia needed help really soon because she was fading."

Dionysus sat up in his chair. "Do you know why she was fading?"

"Yeah, there wasn't enough family or something like that."

"Go on."

"Well, there were three sources of Hestia's not fading yet or something. One was her fire, and one was family and the last was worshippers. Worshippers and her fire were gone, and family was disappearing, so Hestia was going to fade soon, but you, in my dream, didn't know how serious this was."

"I see," Dionysus said. "After breakfast tomorrow, come to the Big House. And with that, he snapped his fingers, and immediately, Ariadne was back in her cabin.

She looked the watch of the girl next to her, and watched in confusion as the time changed to 3:12.


	5. Chapter 5

Ariadne awoke at the sound of the conch. When she sat up, everyone in her cabin was already awake, but entertaining themselves quietly. Some kids were playing cards, some were looking at old photos, and some were even have quiet conversations.

That was when Ariadne remembered what had happened the night before, only a few hours ago. It was like a blur. There was Mr. D. He snapped his fingers and the scene changed to the inside of the Big House. He was asking Ariadne about her dreams, right? She was there quite a while. When Mr. D snapped his fingers again and she was back in the cabin, and the whole thing had happened in just a minute.

Ariadne finally decided that her vague memory of last night's encounter had been merely a vivid dream.

Immediately after the blow of the conch horn, the wake up call for the campers, everyone in the Hermes Cabin scrambled to get dressed; something Ariadne didn't need to worry about because she had slept in her clothes.

"We need to try to be there before the breakfast horn blows," a girl said as she struggled to pull up her fly. "For breakfast, we all line up for a buffet by cabin, first come first serve, and by the time the last people are up, all the good food is gone. _I _should know that; we're _always_ last."

Ariadne just nodded and went out side to sit on the porch until everyone else was ready. As she sat there, she watched as the Athena Cabin, the Demeter Cabin, and the Aphrodite Cabin, walk out of their cabins and towards the dining pavilion; some of the Aphrodite girls still fussing with their make up as they walked. Some of the Hephaestus kids were sitting on the porch of their cabin. A few minutes later, the rest of the Hephaestus Cabin came. Some of the older kids had gotten up early to work in the forge. What was taking her cabin so long?

A bunch of sleepy, monster-mean, kids, most of which were in their pajamas still, came out of the Ares Cabin, and a million eternities later as the conch horn sounded, the Apollo Cabin, the second largest cabin, came out of Cabin 7 arguing as they made their way to the dining pavilion.

Finally, everyone came out of the Hermes Cabin.

"We're last?" one girl asked Ariadne.

"Yeah," she said. "What took you so long?"

"There are a lot of us. Believe me, if you were there, you'd understand."

The cabins made separate lines in front of the pavilion from left to right so the Hermes Cabin, being last, was all the way at the right side, and since they lined up by seniority, Ariadne was dead last; the last person in the entire camp to receive breakfast.

The Athena, Demeter, and Aphrodite cabins were all pretty courteous and didn't take too much food, but as the lines went on, the quantity of food became smaller and smaller. Ariadne almost cringed when she saw the Ares Cabin piling food on their plates like there was no tomorrow. As her own cabin took their food, sometimes she would mutter, "Please leave _some _bacon," or "Do you really need that much food?" but no one listened. Ariadne ended up with a few crumbs of scrambled eggs, a tiny orange slice, and grape nuts because the granola was gone. She picked up the last goblet from the end of the table, and sat down with the rest of her cabin.

"Milk, please," she said. Her goblet immediately filled up with 2% milk which she poured into her bowl of grape nuts.

"You don't need to say 'please' to the cup, Ariadne," Wilson said. She chuckled in spite of herself.

"Sorry," she said. "Habit."

Then she cleaned the remaining milk out her cup and said, "Orange juice," and the goblet filled with orange juice. Why couldn't the plates be like the cups? Then she could just say to the plate, "Toast with butter," and that would appear. That way, no one would have to worry about the line or whether or not there was enough food.

There are times when you remember something, but you don't think it's true, and then there are times when you remember something, but can't decide whether it's true or just a dream. Was last night real, is what Ariadne wondered. It seemed so real, yet the memory was so far away, disappearing as the day went on like a dream usually does. She decided to ask Mr. D after breakfast although it would be quite a bit embarrassing if it had only been a dream after all.

But after breakfast was chores. All campers were assigned some sort of chore to do around the camp, and they had about a half an hour to do them, more if they ate breakfast quickly. Cabin clean up was supposed to be done in the time between the wake-up conch horn and the breakfast conch horn, but since the Hermes Cabin, as the cabin with the most people in it, took the longest getting dressed, they simply didn't have time to clean up like the other cabins did. Since the Hermes Cabin was Cabin 11, they would be one of the last cabins to be checked for cabin inspection, which was being done by some senior campers from the Aphrodite Cabin, the pickiest inspectors, but since Cabins 1, 2, 3, and 8, cabins that were supposed to be checked before Cabin 11, didn't have any campers residing in them, they wouldn't be checked meaning the Hermes Cabin didn't have much time to do their usual stuff-everything-under-bunks-as-fast-as-possible clean up before their cabin was checked. _And_, after that, they still needed to do whatever chores they were assigned that day with the remaining time before first period.

Some older campers said that the system changed every year, but that year, each camper was given a list of activities and how many times they had to do them by the end of that week. For instance, everyone had to take sword fighting at the arena at least three times, but some people had to take it more. It depended on your godly parent. For instance, Chiron wouldn't send a daughter of Aphrodite to work in the forges with the Hephaestus kids, and he wouldn't send a son or daughter of Ares to Craft Making with the Aphrodite Cabin. However, there were a few basic survival classes such as sword fighting, archery, monster maiming, and a few other classes that everyone had to take no matter who there godly parent was.

Since Ariadne didn't know her godly parent, she was given the schedule for an undetermined camper. She needed to take all the basic classes a few times a week - three or four times depending on the class - and some other not-so-important survival classes once or twice. That left her with extra free periods, but for half of those, she needed to be in a class of her choice. If she ever strongly disliked a class, she could go to the Big House and work it out with Chiron, but she was assured that she would never be able to change a basic class, and if she wanted to change a class that was only a little bit useful like canoeing, she would need to excel in it.

There were six activity periods everyday, so most kids would get all of their least favorite activities done on that day. For instance, Terrie Williams, a girl from the Demeter Cabin, hated archery, so she went to archery four times on the first day of classes, Monday, and so she had all of her archery classes done for that week.

For her first activity, Ariadne chose to go to the arena. According to all of the kids in her cabin, sword fighting was one of the most important skills for a half-blood to know.

When she got there, there were only a few kids sitting on the benches on the side of the arena, none of whom she recognized.

An older boy ran in from the side. He had a rawhide basket thrown over his shoulder that seemed to be filled with swords.

"Sorry I'm late," he said. "Completely forgot I was teaching today."

"Hey, Jerry," some of the other kids said.

"Hey," he said. "Alright, first let's see all your papers."

He went around, stamping everyone's schedules with a special stamp next to the word, "Sword Fighting" to prove that they had been done one sword fighting class. When he got to Ariadne, he looked up at her and smiled.

"You're new," he said. She nodded.

"I just got here yesterday."

"Daughter of-"

"I don't know yet," she said pointing to the heading of her paper which said, "Undetermined Camper Schedule."

"I'm Jerry," he said holding out his hand. "son of Athena."

Ariadne shook his hand, only then noticing his stormy, grey, eyes.

"Alright, come on, let's get started," Jerry said as he pulled out the swords and started handing them out.

"I've got my own," the boy next to Ariadne said when Jerry held one out to him.

After handing out swords, Jerry pulled out his own sword, a long, golden colored, beauty.

"Celestial bronze," he said when he saw Ariadne admiring it. "Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, and cooled in the river Lethe."

"Awesome," she said. Although she had never been a big fan of weapons, now that she was going to need one, she realized she'd prefer a nice one.

"Thanks. Gift from my mom."

"The goddess, Athena?"

"Yeah," Jerry said. "Okay, let's get started. You're first, Ariadne."

She looked at his celestial bronze knife, both more precious and beautiful than gold, and then at the camp's bulky, steel sword that was starting to rust. Oh well.

"So what do I do?" she asked.

Ariadne mimicked his stance, and the way he held his sword out at her although frightened even though she knew he would never actually hurt her.

"Okay," Jerry told her. "I'm going to move my sword at you in slow motion since it's your first time, trying to stab you (don't worry, I won't actually hurt you), and you block my sword with yours, got it?"

"Yeah," she said.

Jerry put his sword forward to stab her in slow motion. Ariadne took her sword and blocked it from the right side. Then, he aimed his sword at her shoulder, and she hit it out of the way with hers.

"Nice," he said. "Now, I'm going to go a tad bit faster, okay?"

Ariadne nodded.

Jerry bulldozed his sword towards her chest. Just in time, she hit it as hard as she could with her sword, but he then aimed it at her left arm. She blocked that attack too, only to find another part of her body in peril. Soon, she found herself defending furiously, basically flailing her sword in the air trying to knock Jerry's out of the way. It was clear to her that in battle, this wouldn't work. She would need to learn real strokes. This way tired her out too easily for it to help her survive. Finally, Jerry put his sword down.

"Pretty good for your first time, Ariadne," Jerry said. "Next time, I'll show you some strategies so you won't just be flailing your sword around. Really, it may seem like the flailing works better at first, but once you know what you're doing, you'll find the strategies do work, and that way, you have more control over your weapon. Okay, Thomas, you're turn."

Ariadne walked to the side of the arena to sit with the others.

After sword fighting, Ariadne went to archery, another basic class. Each camper had only two turns to fight since Jerry went off for a while on a long lecture about why Athena, partially a goddess of war, is better than Ares, who's main focus is war. It was mostly stuff on how Ares has no sense of the strategic arts of war. He eventually stopped his lecture because of some thunder heard from up above when the conversation turned more to pointing out the more unflattering faults of the gods.

In her second turn, Jerry showed her different moves. He also helped her go from banging her sword against his as hard as she could to doing soft, but firm, strong, strokes when she blocked, and he showed her how to slowly find ways to stab. He told her to come the next day second period which was the next time he would be teaching sword fighting. Although Jerry said that she had done unusually well for a first timer, Ariadne had half been expecting to be a master at it her first time. Since sword fighting was said to be one of the most important skills for a half-blood to have, she was disappointed that she didn't have the ability to fight off a monster by herself, meaning that if she left camp, she would most likely not survive unlike some of the campers who had been there longer.

Maybe archery would be the class that she would come into and ace. Ariadne wanted one thing that she could master without having to go though the time being not so good at the beginning.

In archery, however, at first, she could barely shoot an arrow, and when she did, no matter how hard she tried, it would go way left or way right. It was a bit frustrating at first, but finally hitting the black part of the target lifted her spirits. By the end of the class, she had hit not only the black, but the blue twice, the red once, and had her arrow bounce off the middle of the target, the yellow.

After second period, from 11:00 to 1:00, a cabin or a small group of campers were chosen to set up an optional, semi-tame activity. Campers would eat around that area, and if they chose to, they could go participate. Chiron would post what the activity was, who was doing it, and where to go, in the morning after breakfast on the door of the Big House, but since Ariadne didn't know that she was supposed to check, a girl from her archery class told her. That day, a few girls from the Demeter and Aphrodite Cabins were chosen to set up an activity. All girls were master pegasus riders, so they set up pegasus riding lessons by the stable which was a bit of a problem since no one was too happy about eating in the presence of a strong horse poop aroma.

Celeste and Daniel Marion, twins from Ariadne's current cabin, Hermes, were having fun making a fortune selling clothespins to campers who couldn't stand the smell.

That day's lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apparently made in a rush. Each camper was given two pieces of bread with a small ball of peanut butter and jelly placed in the middle. Couldn't anyone at least spread the stuff out?

Out of the corner of her eye, Ariadne saw the kids in the Aphrodite not in charge of lunch time activity running to the shower house.

"Oh," she said to Georgia, a determined girl in her cabin. "Is it shower time?"

"Well yeah," Georgia said. "But not our turn yet. It's in order of how clean our cabin was. We're last."

"Oh well."

"I hope we have enough time to shower."

"Shouldn't we?" Ariadne asked. "I mean, two hours."

"Some people take a long time, or sometimes Chiron forgets to call out what cabin can go and shower next. Either way, the hot water's always gone."

Ariadne, as a new camper, didn't have a blanket to set up her picnic, so she joined Georgia, who just happened to be good friends with Jerry, the boy who had been teaching sword fighting. When he came over to them, at first, Ariadne thought it would be like meeting your math teacher at the mall - plain awkward - but it wasn't. Since Jerry was, after all, just a camper, he wasn't like, "Oh, Ariadne, practice your sword fighting," or something like that.

After shoving the hardly edible "sandwich," Ariadne talked to Jerry and Georgia, who gave her a camp store credit to go and buy a few clothespins from Celeste and Daniel, watched the campers learning how to ride pegasi but didn't join in because the line was too long, and finally, had a minute and a half to take a freezing cold shower with only a dab of borrowed shampoo and body wash.

Still, she was happy. Chatting with her friends, going to her classes...all that made her feel so much like a regular camper; like she had been there forever. Life with Gabby and Lorenzo seemed like a distant memory. Not that she didn't miss them. If you looked deep into her, she was either crying in confusion (_What just happened?_), or screaming with rage (_I thought you loved me, Gabby!_), but the Ariadne in depression, shock, and trauma, was well hidden from everyone, even Ariadne.

As lunch drew to a close, Ariadne agreed take a break from hard core hero training, and go to a more relaxing class, Arts 'n' Crafts, with Georgia and Jerry for third period. But as she entered the nook in the forest where a nymph was showing the early campers how to make a Turk's head, everyone looked at her, froze in shock for a moment, and then smiled.

Jerry patted her on the back and said, "Congrats, Ariadne! You've been claimed."

"Huh?"

"Dionysus has claimed you as his daughter," Georgia explained. "You aren't undetermined anymore."

Ariadne looked above her head and was disappointed to see that she had missed the chance to see the Dionysus holographic image above her head.

So she had been claimed. Now she didn't need to live in the crowded Hermes Cabin anymore. She was...Mr. D's daughter.

"So that's why..." the nymph started. Everyone turned to her.

"Why what?" Ariadne asked.

"Lord Dionysus," the nymph said. "He asked me to tell you to come to the Big House after dinner tonight."


	6. Chapter 6

At dinner, Ariadne sat alone at the Dionysus Table. Her friends from Cabin 11 had said something about Mr. D having other children. Maybe they only came in the summer. It was a bit lonely. Every once and a while, she would look over towards the Hermes Cabin and wait for someone to return her glance so she could wave, but everyone was huddled around the middle of the table, whispering like they were talking about something top secret. She hoped they weren't talking about _her_, but then again, what was there to talk about? She had been in the Hermes Cabin for about a day, and then gotten claimed. Dionysus came up to her table.

"So you forgot this morning," he stated. Oh, that's right! He told her to come to the Big House after breakfast...in her dream.

"It was no dream Ariadne," he said as if reading her mind.

"Oh, I thought..." Her voice trailed off. "Sorry I forgot."

"Don't worry about it," he said.

"I'll come after dinner," Ariadne told him. "That's what you told the nymph to tell me, right?"

"Yes, I did, but why don't you come after breakfast tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," Ariadne told him.

He started back to the Authorities Table, and looked back at Ariadne with a inside-joke-like smile.

"And don't forget." Dionysus forced a playful wink.

That night, Ariadne slept by herself in Cabin 12, the Dionysus Cabin. Usually, someone from the Hermes Cabin would help you move your things, but Ariadne didn't have anything. Although it was nice to finally have her own bed in her own cabin, she slightly missed her friends in the overcrowded Hermes Cabin who were sad to see her leave, happy that she had gotten claimed, and secretly glad that Cabin 11 would be one person less since it already had way too many people in it.

She slept easily all through the night, and woke up at the conch horn. She didn't have anything to really get ready for since she slept in her clothes and she didn't wear make-up, so Ariadne simple made her bed, the only thing that was out of order in the cabin, and went off to breakfast.

Since she was the only person in her cabin making it easiest for her to get ready, she was first at the dining pavilion. She stood there for about twenty minutes before realizing she could sit down. A few minutes later, the Athena Cabin lined up next to her, the Dionysus Cabin. Ariadne felt a slight burst of excitement as she saw them coming. She half hoped they would start up a conversation. However, nothing happened that might make her friends. The only thing that they did to recognize that they knew she existed was wave shyly.

After an interminable wait, everyone finally made it, even the Hermes cabin - last of course - who ran in, some with out shoes on yet they were in such a hurry, to claim last prize. A few waved at Ariadne politely, but looked a little jealous.

Finally, Chiron gave the signal to let the meal begin. Ariadne stood there. No one moved. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something. After a few seconds, maybe half a minute, Ariadne sat down, and there were a few groans. She looked around. There was a slightly peeved look on everyone's face. They were all looking at her. Finally, a girl from the Athena cabin who was standing next to her tapped her on the shoulder and whispered, "You're first. GO!"

Oh, she had forgotten that she was the one who started the line for breakfast. She was the leader. Embarrassed, Ariadne ran onto the stone pavilion, up to the long buffet table, and took an empty plate. Once she picked it up, the Athena cabin lined up behind her and the other cabins impatiently waited for their turns to follow suite.

Despite her embarrassment from not leading the breakfast line of hungry campers, Ariadne enjoyed being in the front. She got her first pick on still-sizzling scrambled eggs, hot sausage, and the crispiest pieces of bacon. Since it was breakfast, there was no need to offer into the brazier (that was only for dinner) but Ariadne made a silent prayer to the Olympians anyway, especially for her father.

As she took her seat at the empty Dionysus table, she looked at the Hermes cabin who were at the back of the line and still hadn't even gotten a plate. She felt a tinge of guilt, going from last to first.

As to be expected being the only one sitting at a table, breakfast was quiet. She mostly listened on the other cabin's conversations. The Athena table was making a bunch of inside jokes that Ariadne had no way of being able to understand. The Ares table...well, let's not say what they were talking about.

Since she didn't stuff her plate like some people in front of her did the day before, Ariadne was finished with her breakfast just as the last Hermes kids were just sitting down. She looked over to the Authorities Table. Dionysus, her father, was gone.

_He's probably at the Big House_, she thought. _He said he expected me after breakfast. Now, I guess._

Yesterday, it had been her first breakfast at camp, and her friends from the Hermes table had lead her to her first class. She forgot whether she needed to be excused or something. In the end, she left after Chiron did, and headed for the Big House.

Dionysus sat in Chiron's chair by the fire. Would Ariadne show up? He had his plan. He would send her out on a quest, yes, to save the goddess, Hestia. He was still contemplating whether to tell her that Hestia was her mother or not. Usually, a half-blood going on a quest would be told everything, but there was something about this girl. So naive. So...trusting. She seemed like the kind of girl who would say "Yes" and help the stranger who asked her find his puppy, or take candy from the guy who claimed to be her mother's best friend.

The word that described her: wimp.

He had promised Hestia he would restore her fire, not that it _could_ be restored. It was out, and that was all there was to it. But what if her spirit could be recaptured? That way she wouldn't fade. No one nowadays would actually worship a Greek goddess, but if family was restored, wouldn't Hestia be?

Yes, family had to be restored. Divorces. That was his main problem. A married couple could get divorced so easily now, and it was just sickening to the young god; harming to Hestia. Out of every two couples wed, one couple would eventually separate. Also, if a man had an affair with another woman in the ancient days, the wife wouldn't find out, and if she did, could not complain. Now, women would divorce their husbands.

The god sighed, rolling his eyes. _Women._

But divorce wasn't the only thing that could split up a family. The word _teenager _came to Dionysus's mind. Teenage pregnancy. Teen drinking. Teen smoking. Teens taking drugs. Getting into trouble. Teenagers got into so much trouble!

_The ancient days, _thought the god. _Those were the days. When they were teens, there weren't problems like that. Most girls were married by the time they were thirteen or fourteen. They also had more discipline back then. They were married that young because they were mature enough._

And by the fates, thirteen year olds weren't ready for marriage now. Most thirteen year old girls were all into cute boys, make up, all that, while other thirteen year olds (a small percentage) thought boys were "icky".

Ariadne was, how old? Eleven? She wouldn't be ready to be married in two years.

Yes, a family's teenager might not rip a family apart like divorce, but it could create trouble. Resentments.

Dionysus finally decided what to do. He would send the girl out on the quest. He had originally planned to do that, the main reason being that he didn't feel like solving the problem himself. Now, he knew Ariande was too much of a wimp to actually do something. He would send her out to keep her out of the way, and find a solution himself. After all, _he _had promised to help Hestia. Not Ariadne.

But would he tell her that he wasn't her father? He first imagined her shrieking, like a daughter of Aphrodite would do, and saying, "OHMIGAWD! So, like, who's my parent, huh?"

Then he imagined her nodding, and going off to save her mother, handling the situation like a kid should be able to. He imagined her taking on her mother's gift of bringing families who had been through the roughest of times together, and he imagined Hestia telling Ariadne, and him, or course, that she would be faded if not for them, and that she was proud.

He was still deciding whether to tell her or not when she knocked at the door. Dionysus sighed.

"Come in," he hollered. Apparently, she didn't hear him. He yelled louder, "Come in!"

Finally, the door opened, slowly, and unconfidently.

"Sorry," she said. "I wasn't sure if you said I could come in or not. Don't you hate when that happens?"

All hopes of Ariadne saving her mother went out the window.

_I'll send her off on a silly quest,_ the god finally concluded, _and then I will talk to Hestia._

"What is it?" Ariadne asked the god she believed was her father.

"Why I summoned you?" Dionysus asked. The girl nodded.

He didn't have a plan for her "world saving" quest. Really. He just wanted to get rid of this brat.

_How will I tell Hestia, _the god wondered, _that because of me, my ignorance, she is going to fade? _

He decided he would send Hestia's daughter off on a wild goose chase, talk to Hestia, and then, he would solve this himself. But first, he would have to send this little brat that was Hestia flesh and blood, her glow, what he used to think was her last hope, into an unforgiving world while he fulfilled her destiny.

"I would like to offer you a quest."


	7. Chapter 7

"With your shield or on it," Dionysus said in forced happiness as Ariadne left the Big House.

"Huh?"

"It was an old Spartan saying," he told her. "You know who the Spartans were, right?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Well, before men went to war, their wives or mothers would tell them that in ancient Greek, saying come back with your shield, or die and need to be carried on it. Now it's just used as sort of a saying of encouragement."

Ariadne thought about a dead body on a shield for a second. "Yuck."

The second Dionysus closed the door, he pulled out his card, his entrance to Olympus. He would go ask his father for permission to do something never done before.

Ariadne went straight to archery. This time, one of the older Apollo boys was teaching. As she was waiting in line, she told people about her newly acquired quest.

"How was the oracle?" one girl asked. "What did it say?"

"The what?" Ariadne asked.

"The oracle. You know, that mummy you needed to consult."

"I didn't need to consult any mummy," Ariadne told them. Dionysus hadn't had Ariadne consult the oracle because this wasn't a real quest; just something to keep her busy.

"Then you aren't going on a quest!" one boy teased. "Don't lie until you know the facts, new girl."

Ariadne turned red. "I did too get a quest! Look here, I'll prove it to you."

She led a group of demigods over to the Big House. The boy running archery was in charge of so many kids he didn't notice they left.

"Mr. D?" She knocked on the door. "Mr. D?"

"Maybe he isn't there," a boy said.

"Father?" Still no effect. "He isn't here, but I got a quest. Really. I'm just too good for any old mummy to tell me what to do."

The small group of demigods looked at her. "Everyone going on a quest consults the oracle. Even if it isn't an important quest."

"Mine is important! I'm going to go save Hestia, the goddess!"

"Oh, sure." They rolled their eyes.

Ariadne was fuming with anger. She _did _have a quest. An important one! But why hadn't her father let her go to the oracle? If this was true, if every kid going on a quest did in fact consult the oracle, so would she. She opened the door to the Big House. No one was in the main room.

"Where's the oracle?" she asked the kids, trying to sound self confident.

"Up those stairs in the attic," a girl told her. "And good luck. Some kids die seeing her."

"Oh, sure." Ariadne rolled her eyes, not believing the girl, and ran up the stairs.

Finally, legs sore, she reached the attic. There _was _a mummy there, but it looked like some old thing wrapped in toilet paper even though it wasn't exactly toilet paper.

"Well, Oracle," she said. "What will happen on this quest?"

Maybe this wasn't the best approach.

"Oh mighty Oracle of Delphi," she said in a cheesy mysterious voice. "Could thou tell me what's to come?"

Ariadne let out an exasperated sigh.

Not knowing what else to do, she sat down in front of the oracle and thought.

She hadn't really been thinking about Gabby or Lorenzo. Well, she had, but not as much as she thought she would. Her time at Gabby and Lorenze's was a dreamlike milestone in Ariadne's life. Sometimes in your dream you meet people you really like, but when you wake up, they are all gone from your mind. The problem was that Gabby and Lorenzo weren't a dream, and Ariadne didn't want them to be gone. She wanted to have their memory forever. It was like another world she had entered, and now she wasn't sure which one was real.

She thought about what had happened over the last few days. Then, what had happened with Dionysus.

He had told her that Hestia was in trouble; that she was going to have to save her.

"What's wrong with her?" Ariadne had asked. In truth, she didn't know much about Hestia. All she knew was that she was the goddess of the hearth and family, but there weren't too many myths about her.

"You know about her fire, right?" her father asked her.

"Yeah. She and a bunch of other virgins tend to it. It's always burning. That's how sacred it is. All of the virgins including Hestia give sort of a 24/7 care to it."

"What would happen if it went out, or more importantly, why would it burn out?"

"I don't think anything would happen if it went out. I mean, it's only a fire."

"What do you think could possibly cause it to burn out?"

"I don't know. Maybe-" Dionysus interrupted her.

"Never mind. The point is that her fire is out."

"And what does that have anything to do with me?"

Dionysus looked fumed with annoyance. Ariadne wondered what could be annoying him so much.

"Hestia's fire is more than just a fire," Dionysus had carefully explained. "It represents family, and family represents it. The two can't thrive without each other. You need to...let's say, reincarnate, the fire."

"You mean I need to remake it?"

"Yes."

"But how do I do that if there's more to rebuilding the fire than just burning kindling and wood?"

"That," Mr. D had said. "Is your job to figure out."

"What?" Ariadne was shocked. Dionysus looked like wanted to kill someone.

"Yes. Basically, rebuild the fire. Or else she will fade."

"Fade?"

"Gods are immortal, you know that."

"Duh."

"They live by two things: what they stand for, and people who worship them. When both are gone, they fade. But if only one of the things remain, they can still thrive as they used to."

"So it's kind of like living with only one kidney?"

Mr. D took a deep breath. "Yes, I guess it is. But anyway, there aren't too many people who worship the Greek gods anymore, so we count on what we stand for; what powers us. The thing that powers Hestia is family, but that is disappearing and so is she."

"But there are a lot of families."

"Yes, but apparently, not enough family spirit."

Ariadne had then thought about it for a minute. Dionysus impatiently paced the main room of the Big House.

"So I need to 'restore family' to restore her fire?"

"Yes, and that's all you can know for now."

"Huh?"

"Good bye."

"You want me to leave?" Ariadne was clueless.

"YES!" he practically shook the building, startling his 'daughter'. "I'm sorry."

"So when do I leave for my quest?" Ariadne asked him as she was on the steps of the Big House, leaving.

"Tomorrow."

"_Tomorrow_?"

"Yes. This is an urgent quest, and it must be dealt with fast."

"Oh," Ariadne had said, glowing with the fact she had been given an important job.

"With your shield or on it," he told her as he closed the door.

"Huh?" Ariadne was confused. Dionysus looked exasperated. He explained, trying to be patient, what that meant, and then sent her off to class.

When Ariadne had summarized everything up to when she sat down in front of the oracle and began to retrace her steps, she looked up at the mummy.

It was supposed to tell her what to do, or what was to come, something like that, but it wasn't going to, obviously. She would have to do that herself.

So basically, Hestia was fading because her fire was out, and family spirit was dying. But those were both sort of the same thing. The only way to save her fire, meaning Hestia, would be to recapture family spirit. But how? What _was _family spirit? What was family? In the olden days, family was people who were related, but now, that wasn't so. Family was...people who loved each other. People didn't need to be related to be a family. Gabby, Lorenzo, and Ariande were, no doubt, a family, but they weren't related. But they were a family.

Before a few days ago, when Ariadne thought her parents were two regular people who had either died or realized soon after her own birth that they couldn't care for her, she knew that if she ever met her biological parents, they wouldn't be her parents. Well, yes, they would be her parents by blood, but to her, parents were what Gabby and Lorenzo were. Ariadne hardly ever thought about the fact that she had only known them for two years. Mainly because during those two years, they had become so close, Gabby and Lorenzo had made up for the parenting she had missed.

Georgia, Ariadne's friend, had a life sort of like Ariadne's, but her foster parents turned out to be monsters. But Gabby and Lorenzo? No. Ariadne couldn't even come close to picturing them harming her.

Ariadne stood up and looked at the oracle. She stood there for what seemed like forever.

_Any time, now, _she thought.

For a second, she thought the oracle might move. Just the slightest movement was all she needed to tell her that she _was _going on a quest and it _was _indeed important. She thought she saw it move, but it was just her imagination. It hadn't.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: Remember that this is before Thalia's pine tree. This story takes place before Thalia was ever born.**

Zeus leaned back into his throne. His son, Dionysus, stood before him, waiting for an answer.

There was more to this than Dionysus knew. The problems with the border had to do with Hestia, but no one else had made the connection.

Camp Half-Blood had a very weak border. After centuries of trying to find a solid and reliable one, the counselors of each cabin had petitioned to the Gods for help. Zeus himself had come up with the idea (well, actually it was Athena but whatever) to have all the sons and daughters of Kronos and Rhea _and _the remaining Olympians who were not protect the camp, forming a strong border together. This meant that the border in the demigod's camp had the protection of the twelve Olympians and Hades and Hestia. Fourteen gods protecting their silly mortal lives.

But as Hestia weakened, so did the border. More monsters managed to get through, and more spies from Zeus's father Kronos who was possibly making yet another attempt to regain his throne.

At the time, there was only one half-blood outside the borders of camp still being tracked by a satyr, the girl, Ariadne who was the daughter of Hestia even though she had sword to be a virgin forever. She was weak though, and Chiron, who did not know about Hestia's weakening, ordered the satyr to protect her for another year or two until the border problems were solved. But they weren't. Zeus had been told this, but hadn't bothered to remember - Dionysus had promised Hestia to do something with the girl, protect her, claim her, or whatever. None of Zeus's business. So Dionysus had been secretly protecting her.

But then, monsters began to attack the girl, Ariadne. If monsters, even though they were minor monsters, could attack through a god and satyr's protection, something was wrong and border problems or not, Dionysus had ordered Chiron to order the satyr to bring Ariadne to camp.

Now, though, Dionysus wanted permission to be able to protect this little brat on a quest.

Now, if this were a quest that would determine the fate of Olympus, Zeus would consider this, but it was not. It would only help Hestia and that camp.

"Dionysus," Zeus asked. "Why, again do you want to help Ariadne on her quest?"

"Father, I don't _want _to help her on the quest, I just promised Hestia I would take care of her. And I promised her I would save her fire. I was planning on assigning Ariadne the job, but she's just too...wimpy."

"And..." Zeus sighed.

"I'm going to send Ariadne on a trip to get her out of the way, then I am going to tell Hestia, and then, I am going to try to solve this myself."

"So Ariadne won't really be going on a quest."

"No, she won't. I'm just telling her it is a quest. Really, I am just getting her out of the way."

"Fine, then, Dionysus," Zeus told his son. "Save her butt whenever you feel like it."

Dionysus bowed his head in thanks, disappeared, and reappeared in the strawberry fields in Camp Half-Blood.

Ω

_Hestia tended her weakening fire in her cave. It was quite tiresome, keeping a fire lit 24/7, even for a goddess. Hestia used to have her virgin sisters to help her. However, all of them, they who had sworn to light her fire for their entire lives, had abandoned her. It was that baby. That was why. All of them walked away in disgust the minute she began to show signs that she was with child. Hestia, even though a goddess, could not flatten her stomach without killing the baby inside._

_The baby..._

_Dionysus had promised to find a home for her. Then, in some years when she came to the camp, he would claim her. If, or when, the other gods found out that Hestia had broken her oath, they would not be angry; when Hestia had sworn to remain a virgin forever, it was to herself, not to any of the gods. The girl's future was taken care of._

_In the past, the cold temperature of the cave had not been such a problem. Because of her sisters, the fire lived. It was the special bond between Hestia and her virgin sisters, that sense of family, that lit the fire as well as Hestia and her sisters constantly tending the fire._

_Family..._

_It had been so long since the goddess had heard that word. Then again, it had been long before she had heard anything. Alone in this cave, all was dark. All was quiet. _

_You really couldn't call the fire a fire. It was really merely a few red coals. The fire used to blaze when Hestia tended it with her sisters. Now their echoes of laughter left in the cave were painful memories._

_The goddess had lost not only her family, but hope._

_That is why she just looked on, emotionless, when she saw her sacred fire flicker for a second, and then go out._

Ω

_What, the goddess thought, must a mortal think when he know he is going to die? Does he panic? Or does he just lay back, waiting for it to happen. _

_It was not often that a god or goddess had to wonder this. When gods and goddesses were young, they were told they would live forever. However, Hestia had no mortals who worshipped her. The spirit of family was nothing. Now, her fire was gone. Hestia was going to fade._

_What lies for a goddess after she fades? She doesn't go to Hades in the Underworld. If Hestia could be sure that was where gods went after death, she would not have been so frightened. It was the uncertainty of the future...if there was one. _

_Dionysus, Hestia decided, would restore her fire. How, she wasn't sure. But he would. He had do. It was all he could to to pay her back for what she gave him: her seat on Olympus. After all, just claiming that baby wasn't all Dionysus would have to do to pay the goddess back for her seat on Olympus, she convinced herself. To make things fair between them, he would need to save her. Because if he didn't, if Dionysus failed, the consequences Hestia would face would be dyer. _


	9. Chapter 9

"Anything else?" Dionysus asked Ariadne with an exasperated sigh.

"Nope." The girl snuggled into the covers and buried her head in the pillow.

After his audience with Zeus, Dionysus had landed in the main room of the Big House. He sat in front of the fire, expecting a nice, relaxing evening. However, it was just then that Ariadne came down the steps up the the attic. It turned out that a bunch of kids had told her about the oracle. Dionysus told her that there was nothing the oracle could do for her - a lie - which made her feel "more important". To keep Ariadne from finding out anymore from other campers, he decided that since she would be sent off on her wild goose chase the next day he would keep her in the Big House until morning.

And then, he would go talk to Hestia.

Her hope, Dionysus didn't know. Her only hope was for family to be restored. He would try to restore family, but there was no way to do that. He went over the things a god needed. There were worshippers, which were gone. There was the thing that the god stood for - music, wine, laughter, lust. Family.

He would send Ariadne off the next morning. He would tell her to try to restore "family". He would keep her from dying. Reluctantly.

Ω

Since she was little, Ariadne had a hard time going to sleep. It was so annoying. She would turn on the lights or stand up and feel absolutely exhausted, but then when she crawled into bed, she'd be wide awake. She had accepted this as part of life, even though it was annoying when she found out in school that the average person falls asleep in seven minutes, to lie in bed for hours. The counting sheep thing didn't work a bit. In her mind, Ariadne would imagine a sheep running in a field, and jumping over a fence, and then a another one doing the same, but then her mind would take control and a sheep wouldn't bother jumping over the fence. One would just run into it and ram into it. Then, the rest of the sheep would storm past it. And after all that activity, Ariadne would be wide awake. When she was six, Ariadne had a foster mother named Maureen. Maureen told her to count down from one hundred, which she did. The problem was that she would always get to one. She would then start at one thousand. She would, once again, get to one. Ariadne was putting so much effort into counting down, that it was waking her up even more.

Not being able to fall asleep was annoying, but to Ariadne, the hours she spent falling asleep were a new time of day. She liked having some time to herself to think and be alone.

Ariadne wondered about Gabby and Lorenzo. She had already made up her mind to go back to them while on her quest. She knew how to get to the house from a certain part of town. Maybe they could help her think of a way to restore Hestia's fire, which meant restoring family. The only thing that Ariadne had been wondering over and over, and then trying to push out of her mind, was what if Gabby and Lorenzo didn't want her back?

Ω

One thing that a god does not like to do is admit defeat, failure. Look back in the old Greek myths and you'll find that gods usually find someway out - they tend to blame mortals for their mistakes. But this was not a mistake, and not something that Dionysus could blame on someone else. This was just something that he failed to do, and as is the result in all gods' failures, someone else would pay.

Hestia sat in the middle of the thrones, tending a small fire. To a mortal, it would magnificent, but all Hestia could think of was how it was not _her _fire.

"Hestia," Dionysus said to get her attention. She looked up at him.

"Is my fire-"

The god shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"Dionysus, you promised that-"

"I know what I promised. Look. I will continue to try to restore family, you only hope, but if you think about it-"

"The girl?"

"I sent her off this morning."

"What do you mean, 'sent her off'?"

"On a quest. To save you." Dionysus turned away. "You know, as a backup in case she manages to-"

"You sent her on a quest to get her out of the way." Hestia stood. "I know you, Dionysus."

"Hestia-"

"You promised. And this is the favor you promised to do for me for giving up my seat on Olympus."

"I'll do you another favor if that's what you're worried about," the god said without thinking.

"If you fail right now I might not be around for you to _do_ another favor."

There was a silence as Dionysus realized the seriousness of this job he'd been assigned. He had realized it before, but it hadn't sunk in.

"I'll try," he said. "I'll go out and try to restore family. But I can't make any promises."

"You already have."

Ω

Mortals. The gods knew where they went after death - The Underworld. But what happened to gods? It had been a long time, and now Hestia half accepted the fact that she was going to fade. It had been longer than most thought. As family decreased, long before her fire went out, Hestia had to restore it. There were so, so, few families who just loved each other. There were so few people who knew what love meant. Hestia thought of Ariadne. Ariadne. That was what Dionysus had named the girl, right? Hestia remembered. It was Ariadne. She had wanted it to be Ariadne's presence in this world that restored family. Hestia needed family. Without it, she would fade. And she knew that if she had her own family, maybe she wouldn't. At first she didn't think it was worth it. But then, as Hestia realized that she _was _going to fade, and began to see it as reality and not some far off dream, she decided it was her only hope.

Family was gone. Her fire was gone. Ariadne had been born because if this. It wasn't as if Hestia loved him. She loved him as a friend. A best friend. But she thought that if she had a family of her own, a genuine family, maybe the spirit could be salvaged.

For Dionysus though, he had it the easy way as an Olympian. Because of this, he couldn't fade. Artemis was the goddess of virginity, and with girls "doing the deed" more than ever, and her forest near gone, had she not been an Olympian, she should have faded a long time ago. If Hestia hadn't given up her seat for Dionysus, she would have been in no danger of fading even though family was gone. If Dionysus wasn't an Olympian, however, he would be fine since people still drank wine.

Hestia pondered over this. If she was an Olympian, she would not fade. But how would she get a seat on Olympus after all those years?

If Dionysus was not an Olympian, he wouldn't fade. Dionysus promised to restore her fire, family - her. If he didn't she would fade.

If Dionysus was not an Olympian, he would not fade.

Without family, Hestia would fade. If Hestia was an Olympian, she would not fade, even without family.

But there was no hope of restoring it, so Hestia had lost all hope.

If Dionysus was not an Olympian, he would not fade.

Hestia had lost all hope. Or had she?


End file.
